While the debates may not have a huge impact on the overall outcome of the presidential election, I believe that they matter very much. The debates are the one event where the American public gets the watch their leader, and potential new leader, be challenged on their policies and beliefs and provide support for their political point of view. In very few contexts is it appropriate to challenge the President about his particular stance on an issue or his progress as our leader. I found it fascinating to watch the two candidates finally address their policies and ideas straight to the American public.
\nThe other reason I believe the debates are important is that they force the candidates to solidly explain the reasoning behind their political positions, and more importantly, their plans for change. While we can read about these things online and brush up on the facts, there is a certain effect if “hearing it from the horses mouth” that resinates strongly with me. The debates allow people to judge the demeanor, attitude, viewpoint and ideology of each candidate. This is especially important for undecided voters. Even for me, a decided voter, I found it extremely valuable to have the facts surrounding the most pertinent issues surrounding the debate (namely: the economy, health care, education) laid out by the men who will be in charge.
\nOverall, the debates require the candidates to stand up and account for their decisions. I believe it is a very valuable part of the election process. There is more the the race than deciding on a winner– it is a learning process that offers Americans a great opportunity to get involved in politics and their government, get educated on the issues, get motivated to vote and fight for the changes that they want to see in their country. The debate is a fantastic outlet for people to utilize when it comes to accomplishing these goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the debates may not have a huge impact on the overall outcome of the presidential election, I believe that they matter very much. The debates are the one event where the American public gets the watch their leader, and potential new leader, be challenged on their policies and beliefs and provide support for their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1007,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44297],"tags":[44291,44309,44308,44236,39639,39640],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-debate-significance","tag-debate","tag-meg","tag-race2012","tag-ndjed","tag-obama","tag-romney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1007"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}